Build The Right Team

Chris Postill

Founder

Progressive Plan Inc

Managing Director

Advando Americas

Building Your Team

So, you’re building a team for your turnaround.

Or, maybe your building a team for your business.

For your turnaround you know that structurally the team is as sound as it can be.

Every role covered:

• Administration;
• Engineering;
• Maintenance;
• Operations;
• HSE;
• Procurement;
• Planning;
• Scheduling;
• Turnaround Supervision
• QA.

You’ve got the experience.

Your team is comprised of highly experienced individuals at the site.

They’ve been through this before.

This is how they’ve always done it….

This event will be so much better than the last one…right?

There are so many aspects of the turnaround process that could affect the outcome, I’ll focus on the performance of the turnaround team itself.

First off, is your team built with high-performance individuals that understand accountability and responsibility, (they are different), and their value to the team?

Have you surrounded yourself with a team of high-performance individuals?

Do you know how to identify high-performance individuals?

Let’s assume the system is in place to support a high-performing team.

The culture is in place, the team is improving based on organizational maturity (People Capability Maturity Model**) and you’ve constructed your team with experienced individuals that “know-the-facility” or “have done this before at site”.

Simply put, high-performance individuals will challenge you and your team to be better today than you were yesterday.

Not in the sense of --

“I’m tired, why do I need to do this work”

Poor attitude challenging.

Challenging as to the sense of --

“Have you considered doing this a different way, and this is why”.

High-performance individuals take a holistic stance to their work-scope and challenge the relationships between the tasks, not specifically the tasks themselves.

There is a considerably difference to not having the experience to challenge a process and remaining silent knowing there is a better and more effective way.

High-performance individuals will inquire and ask questions.

They are looking to learn from their past experiences and expand on their approach to problems.

They chase down answers to their questions.

They seek feedback from their peers, sharing early revisions of their work to ensure the greatest possible product.

Inviting thought challenge to ensure they are not falling trap to the “we’ve always done it this way” mindset.

Training and Development.

High performing individuals seeks out training opportunities. It isn’t always directly related to the field of expertise, but they go through the process of continuous improvement.

Jim Collins, in his book “Good to Great” speaks about People First.

Getting “the right people in the right seats on the bus”, then the process and the organization.?

Always People first.

Understanding the need for People first, how are you going to build your team with those high-performance individuals?

I believe it’s a two-fold process. ?

The long-range plan needs to establish the training and development of the team members currently in your organization, as well as students, recent graduates, trades, etc.

There needs to be a clear pipeline of long-term succession planning (and this rings true for every organization, every industry).

The second part of building a team of high-performing individuals is the culture you’re creating.

• Clear and actionable goals.
• A purpose for organization or for the service you are providing – Understanding and Sharing the “WHY”
• Encouraging growth and development
• Providing development and learning opportunities
• Challenging your teams to be better than they were yesterday, and to be better tomorrow than they are today
• Eliminating fear.

Fear of punishment for an honest mistake (Negligence and laziness are not a mistake);

Fear of looking silly and avoiding sharing thoughts (Every Idea can be a great idea provided the right context. Focus on encouraging feedback, and to stick to agendas in group settings);

Fear of failure. This might be the most important to building the culture of high-performers. Let your team know you have their back and they can count your full support. Your team needs to be able to take calculated risks when the situation requires it.

When you are successful, was it People or Process?

When you’ve struggled, was it People or Process?

I’m willing to wager the answer to the majority of both of the above questions, is and always will be People.

It’s always People first --?and High-performing people do it better.

Empower your team members to be high-performance individuals, ensure every individual is a key part of the team, and support their efforts.?